(Takeda) May 22, 2020 - Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ALUNBRIG (brigatinib) for adult patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) as detected by an FDA-approved test. This approval expands ALUNBRIG’s current indication to include the first-line setting. ALUNBRIG is a potent and selective next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) designed to target ALK molecular alterations.

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H. Jack West, MD (Posted: May 26, 2020)

Another option in the first line setting for patients with advanced ALK+ NSCLC, though brigatinib ended up with overall survival results that appear no better and even numerically inferior to what we've seen with alectinib. Accordingly, I don't think there's reason to expect brigatinib should displace alectinib as the prevailing favored standard of care in this setting.

(Reuters Health) May 21, 2020 - Low-dose erlotinib is safe and effective in elderly or frail patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), a new single-arm phase-2 trial suggests.

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H. Jack West, MD (Posted: May 24, 2020)

Elderly or frail patients did just as well on a reduced dose of erlotinib, with fewer adverse effects. Nice to have some prospective data on a question we've been asking and sometimes empirically managing differently based on our inferences for over a decade.

(Pharmaphorum [UK]) May 19, 2020 - Roche has an inroad into the lucrative first-line lung cancer market after its immunotherapy Tecentriq gained FDA approval in a subset of patients. Tecentriq (atezolizumab) has been approved in untreated adults with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumours have high levels of the PD-L1 biomarker, with no EGFR or ALK mutations.

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H. Jack West, MD (Posted: May 21, 2020)

While it's always nice to have another option, it's hard for me to see how atezolizumab provides any advantage over pembrolizumab in what is a nearly identical clinical setting. Oncologists have been happy using pembro monotherapy for patients with tumors demonstrating high tumor PD-L1 expression (50% or greater) since late 2016, and now there is a newly approved dose and schedule for pembro every 6 weeks. I don't see any group or setting in which atezo monotherapy is a better option.